Drug Protest Targets West Side Hot Spots

From as far away as Milwaukee, they come to Kilbourn and Maypole Avenues.

In some circles this West Side intersection enjoys almost legendary status; not for any landmarks; not for any cultural sites, but for drugs.

"White heroin, crack, marijuana, cocaine, whatever. It's been said we've got the best drugs in town," one officer said ruefully.

But on Thursday the strongest thing you could get was a coconut snow cone.

Area residents, frustrated with increasing drug sales and a territorial war they say has ravaged their neighborhood, seized three notorious drug intersections in West Garfield Park, including Kilbourn and Maypole.

Neighborhood residents used lemonade and snow cone stands-fragments of white-picket-fence America-to protest the rampant sales and accompanying violence at one of the inner city's most active drug markets.

The unusual demonstration was organized by the West Garfield Park Neighborhood Partnership, a coalition of West Side community activist groups who say drugs have destroyed their streets. The stands will be set up from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday as well.

The nearby Harrison District police station has lent an officer and patrol car to protect the stands for the duration of the effort, which is also being staged at Kostner Avenue and Washington Boulevard, and at Keeler and West End.

"Get your lemonade here!" activists hollered from their stands, which were set up amid signs that said: "Drug Dealers Must Go," "Hang with the Snow-Cone Posse" and "Chill Out with Lemonade."

Glenda Cunningham-Ross, who helped organize the protest, did not hesitate when asked to characterize the area's drug problem.

"It's bad," she said. "On a scale of 1 to 10, we've got a 10."

She said the severity of the problem forced her group to add this approach to the anti-drug marches, sweeps and protests already in its arsenal.

"We need to show them that we are sick and tired of the blatant drug-dealing in our streets," said Cunningham-Ross. "We're sending a message that we're going to take back our streets. We're the ones who are going to be selling something today."

John Ware, another organizer, said the coalition had put aside fears of retaliation from drug dealers.

"It's true that the fear question is a very real problem," he said. "But I'm not worried about what's going to happen to me if I do this. I'm more worried about what's going to happen if I don't do this".

Neighbors say the community policing program in the neighboring Marquette Police District, to the southeast, and the Austin District, on the west, is driving drug dealers into their area.

Ware spoke without contempt for the program, a throwback to a time when more police officers walked the streets, and said he hoped it would soon come to the Harrison District.

"We as neighbors call the police, we call 911, but we don't get any response," he said. "We asked the police about it, and they said they were overwhelmed."

Sgt. Clarence Thomas, of the Harrison District, denied his officers are overwhelmed, "but we could use all the help we could get."

He said the neighborhood is caught in the middle of a dispute among drug dealers with "various factions vying for certain drug locations."

Thomas said officers often can identify drug dealers, but cannot arrest them because of lack of evidence.

"If it was a matter of grabbing them off the street, we could do that," he said. "But they hide drugs in the grass, in trees, in trash cans, wherever."

Thomas said it was possible that neighboring community policing programs are forcing other dealers into the area, "but we're trying to tell them that it's not going to be easy to work here, either."

Neighbors said the dealers flout police authority by selling drugs in the open, even in broad daylight. The dealers evade police by hiring children to serve as spotters.

Rival dealers boast about the quality of their product and sometimes give drugs away free to lure customers.

"I can't begin to stress the seriousness of this problem. It's a situation that's close to anarchy and that's not exaggerating," Ware said.

"There are so many murders," he said of his neighborhood, which had the city's highest murder rate last year. "To me, it's worse than being in Iraq during the gulf war, or Vietnam."

Residents said many of those who buy the drugs are not from the neighborhood and often come in cars bearing Wisconsin license plates.

Otto McMath smiled as he watched cars slow at Kilbourn and Maypole, look at the lemonade stand, then speed off.

"I've seen some of the same cars coming and expecting to see some action, but it's a different kind of action this morning," said McMath, 76, a member of the South Austin Coalition Community Council.

"We know this won't end it," McMath said, holding a glass of lemonade. "But at least we'll discourage it for a day or so."